To Fabricate a Faberge
by Theivius Authorius
Summary: Sly and the gang (including Gregory) are out on another heist! This time, they're to steal a fabled treasue from Russia's lost history. But can they steal it before they get egg on their faces? Two part story for Easter.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey all. I hope you like this! This is part one of a two-part holiday story, that I SHOULD be able to finish on or by Easter (I hope). Also, I'm still working on To Be a Thievius Raccoonnus, and To Be Smoke On the Water. I should be able to add another chapter to each pretty soon, I hope.**

I crept along slowly through the halls, periodically looking over my shoulder for anyone who noticed me. This is a nerve-wracking job, being a thief; you can never really keep your guard down, sometimes not even if you're sure that you're alone. Or is that just me? Eh. Doesn't matter, really. Anyway, I had a nervous grip on my cane, the hallways were... quiet. Unnaturally quiet.

I passed many different paintings along the hall; the portraits' eyes seemed to follow me as I kept moving. Wait... did the Ivan the Terrible portrait just wink at me? Yeesh, I need to get more sleep, I must be seeing things. I sighed to myself. I just hoped that Sly was in position already.

My ears pricked up when I heard something. It wasn't loud, I probably couldn't have heard it if I wasn't listening for it. It was like footsteps, quick and quiet. I put my finger to my ear, "Bentley, you sure this place is empty?" I asked hesitantly.

"Positive! The heat recognition software says you're the only on that floor... wait... oh boy."

My eyes widened. For a second I thought he stifled a laugh before he said 'wait', but I ignored it. I turned quickly, twisted the cane in my hands, ready to fight if I had to. But when I looked around, nothing was in my vision. The portraits still watched me, and the romanesque pillars were still, propping up the massive ceiling and other floors. The moon hung a bit higher in the sky than before, but I expected that. Everything was normal. I thought.

"Miss me?"

"Gah!" I my arms flailed wildly with surprise, one of them whizzed over his head; he ducked instinctively. When I calmed down a bit, I saw him with his trademark toothy grin, shining in the little light made by the moon.

"Don't DO that! I hate it when you do that!" I said angrily. He just smiled more.

"Oh, relax Greg! You heard Bentley, nobody else is in here! And," he gestured to a camera in the corner, "he shut off the camera system."

"Yeah, but-" In mid sentence, my shoulders slumped. "The cameras were off? I've been dodging them for the past half hour! Bentley," I touched the microphone piece again, "why didn't you tell me the cameras were off?"

He said nonchalantly, "You didn't ask."

"Very funny, turtle." I sighed lightly, " Is there anyone else in the building besides us, Bentley?"

"A couple of guys upstairs and below, but besides that, I don't think so."

"Alright, let's get this over with. Sly, you've got the fake egg, right?"

He nodded, trying to hold back a fit of giggling. Was I that funny? Apparently. I started down the hallway again, "Alright, Sitting Duck, you going to join me or do you just stand around and wait to get shot by Carmelilta?"

He stopped laughing, and ran to keep up with me. He had a scowl on his face, "_Touche_." It was my turn to grin.

This was a pretty big job, here. Let me explain, but first, a little background: In 1885, the House of Faberge, a prosperous jewelry firm founded in 1842, was in its prime of the century. It even overshadowed the abilities it has today, to tell you the truth.

For decades, the House created magnificent pieces of jewelry that were admired by everyone. Almost like Ferrari's are right now. But even then, they were only thought of for the random piece that they created. Well, until 1885, when they started one of their grandest projects: The Faberge Eggs.

The Eggs were crafted from precious metals, like gold and silver, and precious gemstones like jade and diamond, in... well, in egg shapes. In the time, they were worn proudly. They were _the _symbol of wealth and luxury in their time, even currently. If you had a Faberge Egg, then you were pretty well off. Of course, they made cheaper versions of them, for the public that could afford them, but that's a different story. We want to talk about the _special _ones.

Only 50 of the important ones (crafted for the Royal Families of Russia) were made between a 32 year period, from 1885 to 1917. And only 42 of them have survived the test of time. The other eight have all either been lost, or destroyed in the past century-and-a-half. The House had planned on making more of them for the Romanovs, but before they could, they were dethroned and executed (the Romanovs, not the Faberges), so all Romanov-based Egg ideas were scrapped. All except one, of course. The Dragon's Eye Egg. The original founder of the Faberge house created it for the first royal Romanov, but it was stolen before it could be delivered to the Tsar. And now the Russian government has finally found it.

Normally, that's where the story would end. But the owner of the Russian Historical House, a man named Vladimir Raskrochta, is the Highmost patriarch in one of Russia's worst crime syndicates. In other words, one of the worst kinds of criminals.

So we can steal from him. Hopefully we can put that money towards something better than what he's using it for, him killing people and all.

* * *

Sly and I slit up at a fork in the hallways. He went upstairs, while I went down; he'd have to get into the artifact room where the egg was from the top of the room, while I came in through the ventilation shaft. You can understand how I felt about that, from the trouble at Interpol. As I got to the edge of a corner, I saw a large enough vent that I could crawl into. from Bentley's schematics, it looked like this would be the vent that leads up to the Dragon Eye room. Getting down on one knee, I pulled a small screwdriver from my pocket, and started on the panel, when I heard heavy footsteps from far away.

I was glad the place was pitch black, as I curved my neck around the corner. He was out of range for the flashlight to show me, but it certainly gave enough light for me to see him. He was a big, fat dog of some kind. I think a Doberman Pincer. Mean little buggers, them. But I was glad that, for once, a Flashlight Guard didn't have a bullet-shooting gun. I almost grinned, in fact. And that's when I noticed the Shock Pistol. With a gold star of it. Looks like Vladimir has Interpol wrapped around his finger. I hoped to myself that Sasha knew about this.

He kept getting closer, so I'd have to make short work of this. One, two, three, finally all of the screws holding the panel in place fell, as I caught it from making noise on the floor. I slipped in, quickly grabbing the panel again, and slowly securing it back into its original place. I was just in time, seeing the light go right over where I was kneeling. I saw his clawed paws click impatiently, "Vladimir is a bigger _Smucitură _than he comes off. It's not _my _fault that Grevski got the measles..." He kept muttering to himself in Russian; I don't know the language very well, but I'm pretty sure that if I said any of what he said, I'd have to wash out my mouth with soap.

I shrugged and let out a breath when he finally walked away. I twisted and turned to get back in the right direction, and shuffled my way through the darkness to the room below the Egg.

**Meanwhile... **

_"Sigh..." Bentley was tired. He'd been all up getting a plan ready for this heist; he found out about the Russian gallery puting the Egg on view pretty late. Today was the last day that it would be in the Gallery, tomorrow night it would be sent out to the Kremlin, and they'd never be able to get through that place's security systems._

_"So..." Murray said with a mouthful, "Why is this thing so valuable, again?"_

_Bentley looked over his shoulder to see the hippo munching on pizza. 'Why do I even bother with those slide shows?' But he shook it off. Murray didn't mean to not listen, he knew that. "Alright," he said with a smile, "I'll tell you it one more time; This egg was the first one made by the Faberge House. And I mean, THE first. It's more valuable than most of the things we've ever seen, including a lot of the things in the Cooper Vault. In fact..." he thought for a bit, "If we were to use this stuff, then "_

_His mouth dropped. "Woah."_

_"Exactly."_

_He grabbed a plastic drink cup from a small metal table in the back of the van, "But, why is it here? Shouldn't it be somewhere... you know... important? It certainly sounds important, at least."_

_He shrugged, embarrassed. "Well, yes, that's the tough pa-" suddenly a shrill beeping sounded. Bentley turned sharply, to see that his heat signature detector had found another body in the building. And it was moving straight for the Dragon's Eye Room. "Oh, great."_

_"What?" Murray pulled in fast to see the monitor, pushing Bentley over slightly from his girth. He accidentally tilted his drink, which quickly splashed all over the entire computer board! "NO!" Bentley shouted, but it was too late. The monitor crackled with electricity, Bentley and Murray shielded themselves from the sparks. Then the lights flickered in the van, on and off, on and off... then darkness._

_Murray's shoulders slumped. He laughed nervously, "Err... sorry."_

_Bentley hit his face with his palm._

* * *

I exclaimed as I pushed out the grate with my foot. I smiled, as I crawled into the Egg room. "Beat you, Sly."

"You sure?"

"Gah!" I recoiled as he fell from the ledge above, with another grin. "_Would you stop that?!"_

"No. Come on."

I growled to myself. I swear, one of these days... sorry, I'm getting off-topic. "You know, I saw something interesting on my way here. An Interpol Guard."

He turned to me, "What? You mean, patroling the grounds?"

"I think he works for Vladimir. He was muttering in Russian about how Vladimir didn't pay him enough."

Sly frowned. He didn't say anything, but I could tell he was torn to find a good explanation for that. It surprised my how quickly me went from jesting to seriousness. Actually, kind of disturbing. But anyway...

The Egg Eoom was pretty beautiful; just like the Egg. It was in the shape of an egg, with one door on both the top and the lower level. The room was painted with beautiful drawings of Dragons and fire, greens and reds and blues almost seemed to glow in the moonlight from the skylight. The Egg was placed in a small, glass case, set precariously on a bright blue crystal spire.

Sly and I slowly walked up to the case, puting our canes away to inspect it more thoroughly. The egg inside, painted just like the walls of the room made to hold it, looked like it was set inside a pressure-switch. Move the egg, or have it shift somehow, and it probably set off an alarm. And to make matters worse, small gold bars were set into the pressure device, and stuck into the inner corners of the case. I couldn't guess what they did, but I was sure that they weren't good.

"Have you seen this before?"

He nodded solemnly, "Once. See the little air holes inside those bars?"

I looked hard into the case, to see that he was right. "Yep."

"They're part of a vacuum system. I really hate these..." he muttered under his breath. "Looks like this won't just alert everyone about the egg moving, but it'll suffocate us, too. If someone broke the case, it'd sense the change in air pressure, and use hydraulic pressure..." He motioned to a small tube through the ceiling that ran to each of the doors, "... to keep these doors locked."

He walked back to the ground-floor door, and used a small lock pick on the keyhole. I would have questioned why he didn't just use that to get us in here in the first place, but then I remembered that the building schematics Bentley showed us said the doors only had keyholes on this side of the door. "And then, it's use those little holes in the gold bars to pump in Co2 into the room, and the vacuum pumps," He motioned to the large tubes in the ceiling, "to suck all the air out of here." I heard a click, and saw him get up from his knees.

I shuddered. "Gruesome."

"The only other person who used this sort of technology was Clockwerk... I don't like this." After pulling the door open, he stuck his cane up high into the door. It was a heavy enough one that it wouldn't shift on us, so the cane stuck in place.

"Nice," I said with a thumbs-up. I turned back to the case, and worked _my _magic. This thing had a keypad locking mechanism, pretty common for a place like this. Not enough for thieves like us, though. I pulled out the vial of Keypad Goo (Aptly named by Murray), and used it on the pads. The smudges appeared. I laughed out loud at the results of the goo.

"What?" From the look on Sly's face, he questioned my sanity a bit.

I said through my laughter, "This guy uses 1-2-3 as a code! What a loser."

He snickered a bit as I punched in the numbers, and smiled as the door swooped open gracefully. The cage didn't seem to shift at all, still staying perched on the blue crystal.

Now it was Sly's turn. He wiggled his fingers, getting that excited look on his face again. He'd need precision to do this, I stepped aside. I would have probably tried to psych him out a bit, but with the possibility of, you know, _dying _on the table, I didn't want to risk it.

I saw him pull something from his pouch; the fake egg. From Bentley's calculations, this was an exact replica of the Dragon's Eye Egg in height, weight, and design. I admired his handiwork, if he hadn't become a thief, he could have easily become the next great artist. He put Dimitri to shame, that's for sure.

As Sly stared at the green, almost glowing, dragon eye of the real Egg, he shuddered. Something about the Egg obviously made him uneasy. He sighed, almost immediately regaining his composure. He pulled in close to the egg, his hand with the fake egg right beside it. His left hand was propped right above the other, prepared to strike the Faberge. "Greg, I want you out of here." I was about to protest, but he cut me off. "If I don't do this right, I don't want you being punished for it. Just make sure to wait outside the door; in case my cane isn't strong enough to hold the door open, I'll need you to prop it open."

I nodded, sadly. I ducked under the cane in the door, put my hands in a position prepared to push, and waited. I expected for it to feel like forever. I expected Sly to come barreling out of there, grabbing his cane on his way out. I expected the door to move in some way, making me struggle to keep it open.

One second, two seconds... I heard the clinking of metal. My ears pricked up, worried. But I didn't need to be. Sly whistled hapily, looking more relaxed, and snatched his cane from above him as he walked out the door. He tossed a small, green orb in his paw, and dropped it in his red pouch. He has talent; that much I'll give him.

"Ahem!"

We both whirled around, confused looks on our faces. Then we heard the clicking of guns loading in the darkness. The lights turned on in the wing we were in, and we saw three doberman pincers, just like the Interpol agent from before, and a large Russian Grizzly Bear in front of us. And, of course, he was armed.

... HA! I just got that joke!

**Happy Easter, everyone! And like I said, I hope to be able to finish this by Easter. If you can, give a review on this story! Every one helps. And thanks for reading chapter one!**


	2. Chapter 2

He spoke with a thick Russian accent, "I believe you two have something that belongs to me. Now..." He gestured to the three men beside him, "If you were to toss the Dragon Eye back to _me_, without making any sudden movements, then maybe I shall only let them break your legs."

I didn't pay much attention to what he said, I was more interested in trying to investigate more about him. He reminded me of how the Godfather looked in those old movies, but fatter and uglier. He held a black cigar in between his fingers, trailing the smoke as he moved his hand around dramatically. On each of his fingers were a ring, with a large ruby or diamond in the middle. This guy obviously had a bigger ego than his stomach.

"Hmm..." Sly said thoughtfully. "And what if we don't?"

Vladimir smirked, and growled. "Then you won't have legs."

his guards looked just as anxious to kneecap us as he did, I think I even saw one of the dogs drooling a bit. Then the bear let out a throaty chuckle, "Usually people are eager to take the first option; You two are either very brave for standing up to my men, or very stupid. Or both." He extinguished his cigar, and chucked it over his shoulder. "Fine. I'll spell it out for you; You give _me _Egg, I let YOU, you, walk out of here. Get it?"

I shot a look at Sly that said _'This is one of those Surrender and Die things, isn't it?" _At least, that's what I was _trying _to say.

He nodded his head. "Sorry Vladimir; No can do. But it's been fun!" He whipped out a smoke bomb from his pouch, and we fled past them into the inner part of the building. _"STOP THEM!" _I heard Vladimir shout. The spray of bullets droned out any other sound, Sly pulled open another door and I slammed it behind us. I heard thuds from the bullets, apparently the door was thick enough that they couldn't get through. I spun around frantically, grabbed a hat rack and stuck it in between the handles to lock up the door. No sooner than I did it that I felt the banging and pounding on the door by Raskrochta and his men.

"Got any ideas, Sitting Duck?"

He was trying to get into contact with Bently over the intercom, but he didn't respond. He looked like he was about to freak out, but he took a deep breath. I tried to do the same to calm down. I don't think it worked too well for either of us. He dug through his pack, as the thugs kept trying to break down the door, to try to get us out of this. I heard the door splinter as they pounded against it.

I tried to hold them back, but it was no use. They broke through, shoving me away from the door and into a corner where I banged my head. Two of the brutes picked up Sly by the shoulders, and the other grabbed me, while Vladimir strolled up leisurely to the two of us.

"So it was stupidity after all, eh? Pity."

One of the dogs dug through Sly's pack, and grinned menacingly when they found the egg. He tossed it up to Vladimir, gazing smugly at us. "See what happens when you toy with me, boys? Shame. Come Brutis. Lennie, you guard the front door."

I looked up at the guard above me, "You're name is Lennie? What," I looked over to the third guard, "Are you George?"

"Shut up, funny boy."

He snarled at me. I took my chance. I hit him with the back of my head, knocking him backwards and freeing me. I pulled out my cane and bashed it out of his hands, making it fly into the air.

"NO!"

The thugs dropped us as they, including Vladimir, ran to catch the egg. He made a dive for it in the hallway, just barely catching it as he fell to the floor. He had a look of relief for a second, then looked back at us fiercely. We smiled back at him, and slammed the door. He roared in fury, shouting again for his goons to kill us. I was really starting to get annoyed by that.

"Looks like they've got egg on their face!" I yelled as we ran out of there.

* * *

_"Guys?! Can you hear me?" Bentley kept trying to get a signal to Sly and Gregory. The lights had turned back on in the Van, thanks to Bentley and Murray's combined technical and mechanical knowledge, so that made it easier for him to work. He's even been able to get the computer system working again! But the communications was still bugged. "Gah! They've been gone for too long, something's wrong. Murray, how's the engine going?" _

_He shouted from the hood, "It's going! That's all I can say right now." Bentley saw a cloud of smoke poof into his face. Murray coughed to try and get the smoke out of his throat, and slammed the hood down. He said through coughs "It... Got it. Whe-Where's Sly and Greg?" _

_The doors of the Museum shot open as the two raccoons raced out, running as fast as their legs could carry them. Sly jumped in the passenger seat, as Greg went in the back. _

_"Get us out of here!" _

_Murray looked daze and confused, until he saw the guards and Vladimir storm out of the same door. He slammed down on the pedal, the wheels skidded, and they melted into the hubbub of the Russian streets, leaving them the mobsters alone and angry. _

_Gregory sighed. "Too bad we couldn't keep that egg. The things we could do with that money..." _

_"Oh," Sly said happily, "Don't be so sure." He dug into his pack again. Normal to his reputation, he amazed them all with what he brought out: the Dragon's Eye Egg! _

_Bentley paused for a second, staring at the egg. Then he smiled. "Let me guess; TWO fake eggs?" _

_He nodded smugly. "Can't be too careful, right?" _

_Murray laughed. "Looks like they're the ones with egg on their face!"_

_"Sorry Murray, I already used that yolk." _

_He frowned, trying to find another joke. Bentley interrupted his thought, "At least they know we're not chicken!" _

_Sly just shook his head, smiling. "Just be glad I didn't put all my eggs in one basket." _

_"Aren't we a couple of Yolkers?"_

**Alright, the jokes WERE cheesy. But hey, it's a holiday! Anyway, I hope you liked this. And happy Easter, everyone!**


End file.
